Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday September 25, 2013 @01:11AM
from the planet-trying-to-kill-us dept.

schwit1 writes with news that a recent 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Pakistan killed 45 people and caused a new island to form a few hundred meters off the country's coast. The island is roughly 35 meters long, and 7-14 meters high. "Seismologists suspect the island is a temporary formation resulting from a "mud volcano," a jet of mud, sand and water that gushed to the surface as the temblor churned and pressurized that slurry under the ocean floor." Long-time residents of the area say a similar island formed in 1968 after another earthquake, but disappeared a year later. "It is clear that 'the islands are not created because the ground was ... pushed up by the earthquake,' [said geophysicist Paul Earle], but more likely it was a secondary effect of shifting sediments. He also agrees the formation appears to have been caused by a mud volcano, but added that they don't need an earthquake to set them off. There are 'mud volcanoes in Yellowstone that have not been triggered by earthquakes,' he said."

We can rule over our self and wipe out anyone who stands in our way. Just ask the Native Americans. If we get bored or feel our superiority is in question, we just go bomb another country into submission. Just ask the Philippines, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Guam, Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. But if our moral imperative is in question, look at all the quality nation building we have done over the years. Just ask Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Iran, Cuba, and Columbia. We even have an outstanding rel

People die every single day, 107 people die every single minute [hebrew4christians.com] of every single day. Earthquakes also happen fairly routinely in certain parts of the world. When they are large they are covered by the news, in particular their death tolls are well covered to the point many are saturated.

I understand you may not care for what I say, but just try to get the TV or major newspaper to cover an average person who died in an average way after they have died. The bottom line is that people simply don't care about p

People die every single day, 107 people die every single minute [hebrew4christians.com] of every single day. Earthquakes also happen fairly routinely in certain parts of the world. When they are large they are covered by the news, in particular their death tolls are well covered to the point many are saturated.

I understand you may not care for what I say, but just try to get the TV or major newspaper to cover an average person who died in an average way after they have died. The bottom line is that people simply don't care about people they don't know - it's not newsworthy. Death only becomes newsworthy when the person is (in)famous or dies in a notable way.

Excellent! You're only about 3 steps of logic away from solving the Fermi Paradox.

It's based on the tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of a fraction of the universe we have explored,It assume interstellar travel is possibleIt assume other civilization didn't expand and then die.It assumes it takes less resources to get to the next star is less then available resourcesIt assume other species would want to expand.

Until we ahve:A) Sent people to another planet around a different starB) those people are able to be self sustains and thriveC) Invent materials that will last m

And while you were writing this, another 45 people died for various reasons. You forgot to mention this...

Yeah but I didn't just post a news story about the thing that killed them, and focus on something that is non-unique, trivial sience instead.

The guy above this post though is 100% right..it would never have made it to slashdot, and it would have been better that way. It does say "news for nerds" not "nerd news for nerds" though. It's not like nerds (at least most of them) literally only care about tech

I spelled science wrong since it's 3:20a. Not trying to margianalize scientific discovery...the significance of that island just seems considerably outweighed (as far as news is concerned) by nearly any criterion you would care to use.

You say that as though they haven't emphasised the humanitarian impact in literally the first sentence of the summary. The author's priorities are in the right place. You don't have to ignore everything but the humanitarian consequences to be showing compassion for them.

I for one found the story of the new island quite interesting. I found about the people dying from BBC well before it came to Slashdot. Why should Slashdot repeat what the mainstream media has already told me?

What's interesting in this case is not that Slashdot is repeating what the mainstream media already told me (first I heard about the earthquake was a story about the island in the national news), but that Slashdot is repeating what the mainstream media already told me without a 24-168 hour lag, and is only reporting it once.

Slashdot used to be great because it would have stories in it that the mainstream media might decide weren't interesting to their audience. The problem now is that the mainstream media t

If only there was some other site on the internet, where one could read about the non-scientific issues surrounding the earthquake. We could link to such a site in the summary even as we respectfully highlighted the important humanitarian issues. What a brave new world that would be.

No they're really not. No more than the US is a place you can get shot for just walking down the street -- you can make the case that it's true, but there's a lot of hyperbole in it that other people won't pick up on. If you haven't been there, or don't know people from there, stop trolling. It perpetuates myths about the world that just aren't true.

Complete rubbish. Things like politicians being shot for opposing blashpemy laws [wikipedia.org],Kidnapping of Christian [www.news.va] and Hindu [asianews.it] girls for forced marriage and conversion don't happen in the West. I suggest that unless you have never lived in an Islamic majority country you shut up about "it being just the same in the US".

Yep, that doesn't happen. Politicians aren't shot for opposing blasphemy laws. By the way, as your link so elegantly mentions, Shahbaz Bhatti was not killed by the government, but a terrorist organization -- and government declared three days of mourning in response. It's not like there haven't been assassinations of politicians in other countries.

In the US, instead, tourists get shot for walking down the street [nydailynews.com], because some people were bored. Let us now condemn all bored people in response!

Kidnapping of Christian and Hindu girls for forced marriage and conversion don't happen in the West

Girls most certainly are kidnapped to be forced into marriages in the West. But then they pack them off to the East for the actual marriage. But lots of other girls go missing too. Where do you think they're going? Some of them are being killed, some are going into slavery...